Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of promotional labeling in retail outlets, such as grocery stores, and in particular to electronic labeling to enhance noticeability thereof.
Description of the Prior Art
Retail outlets, such as grocery stores, clearly have great interest for increasing their sales. In so doing, there is great incentive to assist potential customers visiting their store in easing their shopping experience. For example, signs or directories directing the customers to various areas are employed. Price labels promoting items on sale or otherwise are employed.
Referring to FIG. 1, in addition to a price label 10 at the shelf edge 15, retail stores typically like to hang a flexible sign 20 under or near the price label to draw the customers' attention to promotions and special sale pricing on items. Typically printed on paper or flexible plastic, these generic signs are known in the retail industry as “Bib Tags” 20.
As a customer enters an aisle, the Bib Tags are used to draw the customer's attention to themselves, location or a product—thus announcing the relevant message on the items that they represent. However, most items in a retail store nowadays carry Bib Tags of one kind or another—thus losing their differentiability and impact.
Moreover, paper or plastic Bib Tags being passive display elements, do not “call out” to the customers at a distance any more than the paper price labels.
Referring now to FIG. 2, we see that conventional paper or flexible plastic Bib Tags 20 are still passive display elements when deployed with Electronic Shelf Labels 25, and do not improve the differentiability and impact of the message that the Bib Tags are supposed to deliver.
Alternatively, an ESL may be also provided with programmable Bib Tag elements to flag special pricing and promotions being offered on the ESL screen. Thus, the need arises for replacing conventional Bib Tags with electronic Bib Tags conveying a message to the potential customer thereby increasing the likelihood of the customer's attention to the Bib Tag.
Currently, the Retail Industry has to go through great lengths to advertise promotions via the print media. This is a costly process with built in time lag between promotional decision and execution and the inability to influence customers' purchase decisions at the Point of Purchase (POP).
A variety of promotional solutions at POP have been proposed that lack real-time associativity with the sale items on the shelves. This results in customers being bombarded with promotional messages in the aisle for items that may not be in the particular aisle or not even in the store. Thus, any attempt at influencing the customers' buying decision at the POP is lost. Referring now to FIG. 3, we see the current practice in retail stores of having an “Aisle Directory” 27 in each aisle or half-aisle. These Aisle Directories are placed either near the entrance to the aisle, or halfway into the aisle, hanging from the ceiling. These Aisle Directories direct the customers to the general categories of goods being sold in that particular aisle. Examples of general categories of goods are: “Cereal,” “Hair Care,” “Cough & Cold,” etc. These Aisle Directories present static category messages to the customers and do not draw their attention to specific items in the aisle or a special deal in that particular aisle on a particular time or day.
Therefore, the need arises for electronic aisle directories to allow for dynamic messaging directed to potential customers of a retail outlet and to allow for more specific information to be conveyed to the customers.